All Nightmare Long
by IronVermin
Summary: Sakura dreams of something she does not understand, in a place she does not know where. One-shot. Might contain scenes scary and stressing to some sensibilities.


[Disclaimer and Warning: I don't own the Type-Moon characters, settings and elements presented in this fanfiction; this work is a tribute to the creators of Fate/ Stay Night, and therefore not to be used for profit.

This fanfiction may contain some themes like violence that may offend or stress some sensibilities. Please exercise an open-mind when reading this fanwork. Also, the work is set in an alternate universe.]

**All Nightmare Long**

A town at dusk. That was the first thing she saw upon opening her eyes, a town that looked like as if time never touched it ever since the Feudal Era, with all of its slightly raised houses, sliding doors, tatami floors and fragile-looking paper walls. The roads were dirt as to be expected from such town, but she was standing on a wooden arcing bridge over a river, which leads into a long and narrow road that slowly changed from dirt to cobblestone as she turned around to see it.

But apart from these things, the town looked as if a riot or war has gone through it, with its houses battered and by pluming smoke coming from some far places of the town that can be seen if someone slightly raised their head if they looked up at the sky. The narrow road behind her, which seemed to be the only entry of the town, was walled with wrought iron and its gates were made with the same material with a iron lock at secures, or rather restrains, the gate from opening. The walls looked like the bars of a jail rather than a proper and solid stonewall, as if everyone inside these were prisoners in this town. This comparison was made stronger by the searchlights that were on top the walls of iron, connected by wires and constantly swiveling, as if they were looking for something that isn't in the town.

She started to explore more of the town as she takes a few steps away from the bridge and to the dirt roads. Apparently, no one seemed to occupy the town, which made her wonder where are all the people living here, the ones who settled, the ones who built this place and the ones who operated the searchlights. Her questions were answered when she heard a subtle rumbling from a far, coming from the right. As the noise went louder, she saw a figure of something bulky and approaching slowly, with eyes that flashed with yellow light. It was a motor vehicle, as she looked closely and recognized, and she opted to step out of its way before it hits her. She then climbed into one of the raised platforms of a nearby house, as it comes nearer to her direction.

When she finally had her ground on the platform, the door behind her suddenly slid open and coming from it was grimy hand. Within a split second, the hand covered her mouth and snatched her into the battered house and she didn't have time to react properly, as her hand-covered mouth prevented her from screaming.

She then turned around while still in a state of shock to see the dark room, and she saw a girl of her age, looking at her, wearing a ragged kimono, her hair in a greasy and disorderly state and her face covered with visible grime. This made her more fearful until the woman puffed up her lips, placed her pointer finger in front of them and made soft shushing sounds, in order for her to calm down.

The girl then said "It is alright. I'm not going to harm you." then smiled at her, and some of her teeth were visibly missing, but this relaxed her a bit. She then warned her "And you should keep quiet. If they hear and spot you, they'll catch you."

She then asked the rugged woman "Where am I? What is this place? Who are you?" with a weak voice, in order not to alert the incoming truck.

She then simply pointed to a small hole in one of the paper panels of the door and told her "Just look." The seemingly newly arrived girl in the town then peeped in the hole and there she saw the vehicle that they were supposedly hiding from, finally near the house.

The vehicle was a military truck, painted gray and its cargo, which was visible because of the lack of cover in the freight bed, were a score of people, sitting down, seemingly downcast. Around the truck was a squadron of wolves, uniformed like soldiers, standing upright, marching along the truck and carrying various firearms. One of them seemed to be the leader of the pack, as he was dressed in garbs of an officer, constantly angry and sometimes roaring at the other wolves or at their human prisoners. Another wolf was driving the truck itself, with its eyes focused on the road and hands clasped on the steering wheel.

The girl was horrified on what she saw, aside from the strange feeling that the scenery gave. She then looked back to the ragged woman, who now has an expression of starkness in her face. "Who _are _those wolves?"

"I don't know." She shrugged. "For all I remember, we were hiding from them ever since I was a kid. I asked my parents, they didn't know. My parents used to ask my grandparents, they gave the same answer. And so on. It looks like nobody knows who are they, why they're here or what they are doing to their prisoners, as all of them never came back."

She then replied, disturbed and worried "That's just…terrible. If those wolves are catching you for no reason at all, why don't you try to fight or escape?"

"We don't know either. I saw a man get electrocuted when he touches the grills here. The wolves never seem to touch it or open the gate too. And something tells us we shouldn't leave this place, as if we are compelled to keep hiding in it and not fight. Besides, it was always been like this, why fight them?" She answered.

"But that's not right. If you are being hurt by them, then you should at least try to escape or resist them." She argued at her. But the only answer she got from her was a shrug.

"Oh, I didn't ask your name yet. I'm Sakura." The woman in ragged kimono introduced herself.

The newcomer to the town then also introduced herself. "Ah, my name is Sakura too. Sakura Matou. I'm pleased to meet you. What's your last name?"

"Last name? Hmm…" The ragged woman thought about it first before giving an answer. "I know. I'm Sakura…Sakura Kagami. Pleased to meet you too, Sakura." Then the two exchanged smiles at each other.

Kagami then invited her "Come on, umm…Matou-san. We must get out of here before the wolves catch us." And Matou nodded.

They silently darted out of the room as Kagami commanded her "Follow me. I know a place where we could be safe." Matou simply followed her in hopes of surviving and getting out of this situation, along with Kagami.

They ran across a few houses, with the ragged girl leading the way. Matou was instructed by her not to be caught being illuminated by the searchlights on the walls, for they also seemed to be the eyes of the wolves, focusing themselves on anyone who gets caught at the lights and making them easier to catch. They kept running for safety and hiding on corners upon sighting wolf soldiers and dodging the searchlights.

After a quartet of blocks, they were compelled to hide at a narrow passage as they spotted a roadblock with a trio of wolves on alert at it and another truck. The truck was carrying something different, this time. It was full of fresh and bloodied corpses, which gave out a subtle yet disheartening smell. Kagami peeked at them from a corner with contempt, then hissed, "Damn it!" under her breath, while Matou was worried about the situation, visibly feeling hopeless.

She then asked her "Kagami-san, maybe we could still turn around and find another way, right?"

"No." she retorted. "This was right here, our safe house. They arrived here just a few minutes ago, just when I was searching for other people! All our food and water was there! See that roadblock? That means they're searching around here now!"

"Then what are we going to do?" Matou inquired.

"…You're right, Matou-san. Maybe we could turn around for a while and let them leave. Besides, even if they burned down the house, they wouldn't burn our supplies in the basement… Let's go." Kagami signaled at her.

"…No…" a voice has murmured in response to her.

The two of them felt chills down their spines from hearing the voice. Both of them thought that the chase might be finally over and they were the losers, but neither of them had the courage to face defeat.

Kagami finally had the nerve to look back at where the voice came from, then Matou followed suit. And there it is, a uniformed wolf, pointing a rifle at them, with its eyes seemingly saying that he could pull the trigger anytime and add them to the collection of bodies in the truck.

But the ragged kimono wouldn't just give up yet, as she grabbed Sakura Matou's hand and ran with all due haste, even if the wolf commanded them to "Hold it, right there!" Their escape was just in time with the hail of bullets that the wolf's rifle fired, and not one of the bullets landed on them. As he failed to gun them down, the wolf instead pursued them.

"Quick! They noticed us! He will call the others too! We have to escape!" Sakura Kagami warned her, while catching their breaths with all the sprinting that is being done and fairly managing to glance at the side and the back, hoping that they will lose or have lost them.

But their hopes were somewhat dampened when they saw that a few wolves, maybe four or five, outrunning the duo, chasing them using all fours. The chase was suddenly brought to an abrupt stop when a wolf ambushed them by crashing into a flimsy wall and in front of them. The two of them managed to stop running into the wolf and run back, but they saw that two more wolves were there. Then they finally noticed that they were surrounded by the pack in all sides, with now possible escape on sight. It was all too late for them.

The wolves finally stood up and drew their firearms, pointing the barrels towards the two girls, poised to fire and slowly approaching. When they were at arm's length in front of them, Kagami tried to throw a punch at the wolf in front of her, but he dodged it and his comrade beside him was quick to hit her using the butt of his rifle.

Matou yelled "No!" as she saw her being struck down and captured by the few wolves. Next thing she knew, rest of the chasing party grabbed her by the wrists and although she tried forcing them out of their grasps, the practice proved useless.

As the two of them were brought to the roadblock they tried to avoid, one wolf, which seemed to be the unit leader, spoke on his radio. "HQ, this is Worm Nineteen, we've captured two people here. Over." he said with a rash voice, fitting for that of a wolf.

The radio answered back "Worm Nineteen, this is HQ. That's nothing out of the ordinary. Over."

"HQ, one of them seemed to be of foreign origin, not a native inhabitant of this city. Requesting contact with Patriarch." He revealed.

"Request granted. Redirecting you to Patriarch. Out." The HQ answered, then a short static was heard from the radio. The two women were concerned on what was to be done on them, as they will meet the same fate the others have met. The rest of the wolves were on guard, determined on not letting them escape.

The static on the wolf leader's radio was cut and an old man's voice was heard from it, saying "Unit Worm Nineteen, this is Patriarch speaking. The HQ told me that you captured a foreign girl. How does she look like?"

The leader looked at Sakura Matou before answering, his eyes focused on her horrified expression. "She's about 13 to 16 years old, about five feet and an inch, with long and purple hair. Vital signs are visibly stable."

"What?...Bring her to my office, Worm Nineteen. I want her alive." The Patriarch ordered.

He, the wolf leader, then inquired "How about the other one, Patriarch?"

"If she's nothing out of the ordinary, then apply standard operating procedure." The old man spoke. "But as for this strange girl, bring her to me, at once. Alive."

"Roger that, Patriarch. Out." The wolf leader then turned down the radio, and then signaled to the other wolves to bring the two Sakuras to the truck, to be placed at the same truck of corpses, sitting beside the rotting remains.

As the truck drives towards the unknown place where the wolf soldiers are situated, the trip felt like a sentence of death penalty, made worse by the sight and smell of the dead bodies in front of them. Sakura Kagami opted to keep silent out the whole journey, while Sakura Matou quietly shed her tears out of fear for herself, Kagami and the seemingly torturous end that waited. The trip made its way towards the middle of a city, where a forest surrounded by iron fences can be seen.

The corpse caravan finally arrived at a very wide building in the middle of said forest that looked more of an oversized and windowless bunker made of concrete and steel, surrounding it was a fence of barbed wire and steel, with watchtowers around it, occupied by uniformed wolves and more searchlights. The building had made up with its lack of windows by having many industrial fans running constantly, towering chimneys that billowed smoke endlessly and dwarfed the watchtowers or even the town walls, and the numerous garage doors, some open and some closed shut. Many trucks of the same model as the one they rode on were parked in the asphalt ground nearby the garages, and a few trucks were just unloading prisoners or corpses when they arrived there. The people who were captured alive were made to walk on inside one garage door on herds, while captured human prisoners instead fed the dead ones to a vent that resembled a garbage chute. The scene they saw struck them as bleak and nightmarish, especially the thought on what was being done to the corpses.

When the truck finally stopped, the armed wolves forcefully pulled the two women from the truck. Sakura Matou resisted, so one wolf obliged to carry her on his shoulder, towards a narrow door. Sakura Kagami, on the other hand, just seemingly accepted her fate and came down from the truck without putting up any fight, as they brought her to join the prisoner crowd at a garage.

Matou let out a yell to Kagami, saying "Kagami-san!" in hopes on calling her attention, even for the last time.

The call was heard and Kagami did look back. She then flashed a smile at her, while cheerfully saying, "It is okay, Matou-san! I'm stronger than the wolves thought; they won't do anything to me!" As she joins the captured crowd, she then yelled back at her "It's yourself which you should worry about, Matou-chan~!" Those were Kagami's last words to her, before joining the stream of people.

Sakura, now all alone, had no choice but to shed a tear for her namesake girl, on the fate that will meet her.

As the wolf soldier carried her inside the bunker-like building, she opted to look around it, observing the features of this seemingly oppressive and enigmatic structure. It was dimly lit by light bulbs wrapped with iron grills, seemingly keeping the structure dark without making it pitch black, rendering navigation through its concrete corridors impossible. There were also vents on the ceiling that continuously released cold air, which obviously was building's air conditioning system, centralized and adding up to the chilling aura that it had.

They passed by a corridor where the building's only window can be seen, a large rectangular one lined and grilled with iron. When she looked outside this window, she saw a large room, a facility. This facility contained many machines and mechanics unknown to her, mainly because they were really strange. All she knew is that the equipment she saw faintly smelled of blood, with its translucent tubes flowing with the said substance.

Passing by a crossroad of corridors, she briefly heard something coming from the left. It was the sound of collective agony, sound of people screaming in pain, wailing endlessly along with the sounds of grinding machinery and crackling electricity. This gave Sakura the urge to scream Kagami's name, but it would be useless, since it might already be too late for her to hear, so she just heard the cries silently, wishing to help but couldn't.

The walk of the wolf carrying the purple head was long, but it apparently came close to its end she saw an iron door at the end of the seemingly lengthy passageway they walked by. At the door, the words "The Director-General's Office" were stenciled in black paint. The wolf carrying her opened the door, and the first thing right before her eyes were a desk, two chairs in front of it, three file cabinets, a radio console and a bench, all made of brushed aluminum. There was also a triangular chunk of iron atop of the desk, and in it was engraved the words "Abe Matsuo, Director-General".

But what really got Sakura's attention were two things. The first was a short, plump and mustached figure in a uniform, seated on a leather-cushioned chair behind the desk, with its arms rested on the desk's surface and fingers entwined. He was elderly and balding, with his skin starting to show dark spots that appear when someone ages. He must have been the Abe Matsuo that the engraved name was referring to, the supposedly Director-General of this wretched place.

The second one was really shocking in her part, as she looked at it with widened eyes. It was a flag hanged on the wall like a tapestry behind the Director-General, mainly white in color, and in it was a crest, something that Sakura really couldn't forget for the rest of her life.

It was the Matou crest, painted in black against the white background of the flag.

The old man looked at the wolf and commanded him "Thank you for bringing her here, Sergeant. Now you could put her down, but I still need you here to keep watch at her." His voice was slow, serene and fatherly, as if you would never mistake him for someone who ran this seemingly prison camp for humanity. The wolf sergeant complied without any hesitation, and he did put Sakura down on the floor. He then went to the door and stood with his rifle, on guard and alert.

The Director-General then looked at Sakura and told her "And you there, lady. Please take a seat." She took a little while before doing as she was told to, taking a seat at one of the aluminum chairs in front of the desk, although she was downcast. "Please take a look at me, young lady. Do not be shy." He told her, and it was another while before she looked at him directly. And when she saw her, he was smiling, as if he was saying that he won't harm her.

He then stood up from his seat and walked towards the other chair in front, while introducing himself. "And before we get started, I would like to introduce myself. Of course, I am Abe Matsuo, the Director-General, or simply General of this military base and bio-power plant. Now that's done, I am now taking questions."

She took her time to think of anything she would ask him, as well as preparing herself for the answers that he will give out. And the first question she threw out was "W-where are we right now?"

"Hmm…Very good question to start. To be honest, I don't know either. For all that has been seen or heard or written in the records of this town, it could be said that it was not given a name. Even if you look at the oldest record of my files…" He opened one compartment in the file cabinet and pulled out a thick record book. He turned it at the first page, took out his spectacles and wore it; looked at it for a while and said "…this town never had an official name. And see this." He showed her the one document of the records. "It seems that this place also didn't have a proper time system too. The earliest record just listed the date as 'Day 1, Year 5.' That means this town never established a suitable dating system. And we are not even sure if the town was really already five years old when the administration was transferred to us."

"Are you saying that this town had a leader before you?" Sakura immediately asked, curious to know the history and everything that was happening in this desolated place.

"Yes." The Director-General's answer was also immediate. "They were, as I remember, a bunch of shrine priests or magicians of sort. I still remember their banner. It was a crest of different design, although a red or maroon-colored crest instead of a black one. But yes, they gave up their administration to us when they decided that we could take care of this town much better…We couldn't blame them for that, they actually had another town to run. And ever since we took over this place, we never heard anymore news from them." He said as he finally seated himself on the other chair in front of the desk, putting the record away on top of the file cabinet and removing his spectacles.

Sakura's dread for the state of this town and contempt for this man was increased upon knowing that there was actually a former town leader before the General. How could they, she asked herself, abandon this town and give to old man commanding a bunch for wolves that hunt down people and torture them? She took a deep breath before asking another question. "…What are you doing to the people here? Why are you imprisoning and torturing them? Why are you doing all of these things?" The question had intent on making the General shocked, making him feel guilty and perhaps making him stop all of the horrifying things that happen.

But the Director-General just laughed heartily, then answered in a clinical manner. "As I said a while ago, this facility is a bio-power plant and for it to run, the machines here under go a process to produce power in an efficient and continuous process. This process requires an energy source, glucose, which can be found in blood plasma…No guessing where we get blood plasma to power this thing up." He smiled at her after the explanation.

Yet the smile did not settle her down, instead left her very petrified. Her hatred for him started to get slowly replaced by fear, which made her almost mute out of shock. The very thought of the process that this power plant employs to make it work will strike anyone with the same feeling she had right now, she thought to herself, more so that the General only treats the living people here as a resource, nothing more.

After a few moments of silence in the room, she finally dared to ask him "…Is there no other way to get this blood plasma? The people here, they're all hiding and dying just for this process! Soon, all the inhabitants of this town, all of them, they will all die!"

"Don't worry, young girl. We will fully explain the course of actions that we are undertaking to you. First, I have foreseen that, of course. And we have taken the necessary measures in order for us not to lose the source of blood plasma we have, and that is imposing a strict quota. When we first came to this town, before the power plant was built, we asked the townspeople here to register themselves and their other relatives, in order to estimate the birth rate, the death rate and the total population of this town. And after getting the needed data, we made the most precise calculations on at what rate does the population regenerates itself. Of course, if the death rates are higher than the birth rates, there are times that we will suspend gathering people, which would go on for weeks, months, years or even decades. During this so-called dry season, we secretly deliver food, water and medical supplies to the townspeople here, in a way which they would not think that it came from us, instead making them think that the supplies were already inside the abandoned houses, or rather setting up fake military outposts for them to freely steal these goods. And when calculations say that the rates have already reached the above normal level, we are free to gather them again." The General explained, in an immediate and fluid tone. "Second, now you are also asking why we are using the townspeople in order to get the necessary blood plasma, eh? We have three reasons for doing such. One, synthesizing glucose is too expensive for this base to afford, and our only source of income is selling the skeletons and organs harvested from the people after we have fully extracted their blood plasma, aside from the maintenance costs of this plant and base. Two, we also needed additional personnel for the gathering process that we are employing, so those townspeople who have been pronounced as fit for service undergo additional medical processes, such as lobotomy and lycanthropy, in order to turn them into fully functioning soldiers." The Director-General stopped at this point with his explanations and answers to Sakura's questions.

"…B-but I thought there are three reasons why you are capturing people? What's the third one?" she asked him, in an inquiring manner of speech. Although she was already too scared by the answers she had received, she needed to fully know why the town was undergoing something like this.

General Matsuo smiled when he heard the question and told her "That's why I stopped, because wanted you to ask that. To be honest, the power we use for the military base from the plant is just fifteen percent of the full output that it releases. In short, we aren't using all the power that this plant supplies. So where does that eighty-five percent of power go to?" He then went near her ear and whispered "That's what I'm about to show you, young lady, the very reason why I wanted to talk to you."

Sakura was rendered speechless upon the General's reveal of intent. What is it that they are hiding from the rest of the townspeople? Is it the very reason why they are killing them? Is it the reason why they needed to go through all these sufferings? These questions can't stop creeping up her skin and mind and, even if this reason was horrifying, she eagerly needed to know the answers. She looked at the old man with eyes that asked these questions, and the Director-General looked back at her as if he will give the answers to her, without any hesitations.

"Shall I show you the answer right now, young lady?" he asked her.

She will answer but then again, she also requested something from the General. "Yes, and I wanted to see this reason with a certain someone. Her name is Sakura Kagami, and she is amongst the people you captured."

"We will see, young lady, if she's still alive." He nodded, and then headed towards the radio console inside his office. He cranked a dial a few times, and static noise came out from the earpiece. General Matsuo then started talking. "Hello, Unit Worm Two, this is Patriarch speaking. Please call out a girl named…Sakura Kagami from the resource pool. Over."

"Roger that, Patriarch. Sakura Kagami, confirmed still not extracted of blood plasma. Any additional orders, Patriarch?" the radio replied.

"Bring her to Area One, alive, under my orders and Level Five clearance." The General ordered.

The wolf soldier in the other end then replied, "Orders received, Patriarch. Proceeding to Area One with Sakura Kagami. Out."

General Matsuo then put down the radio console's phone, and then commanded the wolf sergeant standing at the doorway during the whole conversation. "Sergeant, we will go to Area One with this young woman here. Please keep alert."

"Yes, sir." The sergeant answered, and opened the door of the office.

The Director-General then offered his hand to Sakura Matou, in a polite manner. She found herself a bit surprised upon the show of this gesture from him, even if he already displayed a sense of refinement during the whole conversation, maybe because he explained to her everything that this town had gone through and is going through without battling an eyelash. She, nevertheless, took the hand like a refined woman, and then went with him towards the place named as "Area One", alongside with the wolf sergeant that was guarding the office for the whole time.

She found herself traveling the concrete corridors again but this time, she was walking by her own feet, not being carried by a wolf soldier, which gave her some sort of security. At this point of her traveling throughout the building, her fears died down a bit, but it instead mixed itself with nervousness, confusion and anxiety. She will soon meet Kagami again and both of them will eventually discover a secret kept from the townspeople, something that they died for without knowing the reason why. But after discovering this secret, what then, she thought, happens to the two of them? Will they be killed and be used as fuel for the plant? Will they be forcefully converted into wolves, only to serve Director-General Abe Matsuo and hunt down more people? These, along with the many questions that riddled her, will be answered when they will, at last, discover the great mystery that "Area One" hid.

They, after a few minutes of walking downstairs and in the passageways, finally arrived to Area One. The first thing that she saw of the place was another iron door, with a keypad beside it and two lights above the door, one of them lit of red, leaving the other one unlit. The words "Area One" was stenciled on top on the two lights, which made her sure that this is the place they were going into. She bravely prepared herself with facing the thing that the iron door is hiding behind it, although unsure if they were being deceived or not.

The Director-General then went to the keypad pressed a few numbered buttons on it, then the red light suddenly went unlit and instead, the other one lit up in green. He then turned back to Sakura and said, "We will wait for the others before we can open up this door. I assure you, young lady, that we are not, in anyway, lying to you." These words did not calm her down, the reaction she gives out every time he tries to do so.

After a few minutes, a couple of soldiers arrived, along with Sakura Kagami. Upon sighting her, Sakura Matou ran towards her and gave her the warmest hug she could give. Kagami was caught off-guard with this gesture, but she received it with a smile.

"Kagami-san, I never thought I will see you again! I'm so happy you're alive!" Matou told her, with her eyes almost tearing up.

"You shouldn't have saved me from there, Matou-san…but thank you." Kagami replied, with a tearful smile.

The two of them were finally reunited, but this was not the time for them to be happy, Sakura Matou thought, as there was something that they needed to take care of, needed to be seen. She then looked back to General Matsuo. The Director-General then asked them "So, I guess we should…go inside the Area, am I right?" The two girls briefly looked back at each other, before the two of them nodded to him as a reply. The decision has been made, there was no turning back.

The Director-General was the first one to enter the room, which was unlit and pitch-dark. The two Sakuras followed suit, holding each other by the hands, then the three soldiers. When they entered the room, the only source of light Area One had were the lights behind them, and it was not sufficient to make them see the whole room. It was as if they walked into a starless space, a dark nothingness, an abyss-like eternity, until a wolf soldier raised a lever just a few feet beside the door.

And the room almost lit up in an instant, first a few lights, and then a few more until the whole room was fully visible. It was very big in height and in width, looking bigger than if you saw it from the outside.

"Area One" contained some sort of a tall cylinder, covered by two semi-cylinders of sheet iron, preventing anyone from even peeking what it contains. The cylinder also stood higher from the ground, making it impossible for everyone to even touch it. The cylinder's only two flat circular surfaces, which the lower one was just a few meters from the floor and the higher one also a few meters from the ceiling, was covered by a cluster of wirings and pipes connecting to the surfaces. The wires and tubes connecting were of various thicknesses and sizes, but all of them originated from every corner of the room. This structure of the cylinder and the pipes made it look like as if a metal tree, with two roots that anchored on the ceiling and on the floor, grew in the middle of the room. And it front of this tree-like structure were different types of screens and controls, displaying unique graphs in each screen, with numeral readings which seemed that the only people who could understand them are the ones who had been instructed on how exactly they work, more so the people who worked there for a very long time.

The Director-General then began to lecture the two girls. "Before I open up the vat, I would like to remind you that this is were the rest of the power supply goes to, and this is a reason why we are using the blood plasma from the townspeople. The creature submerged in the vat, which we call as "The Great Mother", is kept alive by the electricity that the bio-power plant produces, and it apparently craves for two things. One is glucose, which half of the extracted amount from the resource pool is fed to her and the rest to the power supply. The other one is human endometrium, extracted from the uterus of the resource pool." He then looked at Matou directly in the eyes and said "And you must look at this, carefully."

General Abe Matsuo went near a control board, and then pressed a few keys in a sequence. Then the two iron semi-cylinders started to slowly open up like an umbrella, with the uncovered cylinder as the stalk. He then curtsied at the two girls while saying, "I, Director-General Abe Matsuo, would like to introduce to you, The Great Mother."

As the vat uncovered itself, the two of them, carefully stared at what was inside the containing vat. It was human in figure, submerged in neon green-colored water, with a few small tubes connected to the different parts of its body. The human was feminine in form, its face in a seemingly serene state, with its eyes closed. It was like sleeping, yet managing to float in the middle of the vat with all ease.

But its serene state did have yet to calm Sakura Matou down. She was instead horrified more upon fully taking sight of its face. She knew this face, she knew her. She have seen her almost everyday. She fully knew her name, her story, her personality, everything. She could see her, with her name written on her notebook, with her face on a picture frame…and on a mirror.

The girl inside the vat was her.

After fully knowing what was inside the containing vat, her vision started to dim, as if her body was tired with all the running and all she needed was sleep. Perhaps this must be it. Perhaps the guards had stunned her with something, maybe a tranquilizer dart. But she did not feel any pain, but she rather had felt Sakura Kagami's hands cradling her, looking at her face, worried. She was slapping her face and calling out her last name, a practice just between the two of them, in order to wake her up. Nevertheless, her vision suddenly starts disappearing, with the soldier wolves and the Director-General surrounding her, as she faintly hears the General ordering the wolves to call out a medic. And after a few minutes, all her senses, her vision, her hearing, her feeling had started to disappear. And she felt nothing.

Perhaps she needed some sleep.

When she opened her eyes again, she saw a wooden ceiling with a circular fluorescent lamp, lit up. She was lying on a futon, with her head on a pillow. She brought herself up and sat on the futon. She then looked around. The room was lying on still was like Feudal Japan, yet it was clean and in good condition. It was there was a window on one wall that slipped a few rays of sunlight. The night has passed, she thought, everything that she saw, Kagami-san, the wolves, the Director-General and the vat. All of them were gone. Or rather, they never existed in the first place, they were never there. It was all just an illusion, a dream. And it was all over.

After a moment of contemplating on her dream, she decided to stand up from the futon and go to the dinning room. She was thinking of what she would cook today. Could it be sunny side-up eggs? Bacon strips? Tonkatsu? While thinking of all of these, she continued her walk to the kitchen.

When she arrived there, she saw that the breakfast had already been prepared. Bacon and eggs, along with miso soup, rice and broiled fish, were for dinner. She then looked the kitchen counters and there he was, Shirou Emiya, washing his hands then wiping them dry with a towel.

Sakura then took her place at the table to wait for him to sit down. She then told him "…I should have just cooked the breakfast for you, Shirou."

"Why should you?" he replied, as he approaches the table to sit beside her. "You were always waking up early to shop for groceries and cook for us, Sakura. This time, I'm the one who's supposed to cook for you." He then finally takes a seat.

"W-why?" she asked, innocently.

"You're forgetting something, my dear." Shirou answered. He then took her head beside him and made it lay on his shoulder. "Even before we got married, you were always doing this for me…Happy Anniversary, Sakura… It's been two years."

"…Thank you, Shirou." She then started to tear up, feeling happy for the two of them.

He then cuddled her up and gave her a kiss, the warmest and most passionate one she could ever receive from him, although it was a short one. And after they parted lips, they started to take their eating utensils, to start the morning right with a breakfast.


End file.
